The career of Hungarian-born object and furniture designer Eva Zeisel spanned eight decades and included leading roles in workshops from Russia to the United States. This early black double-handled vase, which Zeisel made at her home studio in Budapest, Hungary, is a study of Hungarian black pottery, a technique that uses pine wood to fire clay under an airtight dirt mound. As a designer at the Schramberg Majolica Factory in Germany, Zeisel transformed the monochromatic color and simplified geometry of Hungarian black pottery into Cubist designs. The vibrant glazes of these Schramberg factory works enhance Zeisel’s unconventionally placed vase handlesand resoundingly round platter.